Bloomberg Outraged at Omnibus Bills

Mike Bloomberg, ever the businessman, defended his media campaign to eliminate a ban on how police can track the flow of illegal guns by attacking the inefficiency of Congress .

On his radio show, Bloomberg said the problem was that the amendment that prevents police from gathering crucial information was passed because it was an amendment on a spending bill.

“If they ever had it in Congress, a bill in Congress, to do this, of course it would never pass. But what they do is they put it as an amendment on an appropriations bill so that congress can say, ‘Well, I didn’t know it was there,’ or ‘I didn’t vote for it,’ ‘I had to vote because we needed the money for everything else,’ and I’m saying we can’t let them do that. We got to hold their feet to the fire.

“I find these big omnibus bills to be outrageous because there’s never a vote. That’s not what democracy is about. It’s congress trying again, and they do it at the state level, and the city level –not at the city level maybe, but at the state level as well–where there is no transparency and people don’t know what their representatives are voting for.”

Later, in a line that could have been crafted by David Frum, Bloomberg said, “Congress is either going to vote for criminals or vote for you.”